Guess Who Didn't Show Up to My Wedding novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Bench at the Cove

Mara texted me at noon, from a number I didn't know.

It said: "Sunset Cove. Two o'clock. Come alone. I'll tell you everything, and it isn't a game."

I showed the screen to Cillian.

"I'm going," I said. "I'm telling you where I'm going and when I expect to be back. Six."

"I'll be at the gate at six," he said.

"You don't have to."

"I know what I have to do."

I told Mom too, because I had said I would.

She said, "Thank you for telling me," and her voice shook.

I drove Darrell's hatchback down the coast with the windows open.

The hall was shut up for the week, and the lot was empty except for the planner's van at the far end.

Mara sat on the bluff bench past the rail, facing the water.

She wore jeans and a gray sweater, and her red lipstick was gone.

She looked younger without it.

In her lap lay a hospital badge on a worn blue lanyard.

I sat at the other end of the bench.

"That was hers," Mara said. "She worked nights on the cardiac floor. The badge was in her coat pocket, in the bag the police gave us."

"You kept it."

"Mom wanted to throw out the bag. I told her it was my mother's, and she let me have it." Mara turned the badge over. "She let me have everything. That's what I hated."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Because it's where you said no. It's the only room you've ever said it in."

I let that stand.

"Ask me whatever you came to ask," she said.

"Why the lilies?"

She almost laughed.

"You first," she said. "You told them in the car you wouldn't guess."

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